Winter would be colder without you here
by Rampant Repose
Summary: Sometimes when Sleuth closed his eyes for too long he could swear he could feel hot sunlight beating down on him and warming his limbs. As comforting as it sounded the moment he snapped his eyes open, panicked and half aware of his surroundings, all he could feel was a stabbing fear. (Spades Slick/Problem Sleuth)


Monday, 23:37

Sleuth's line of sight was divided between a world of glittering white and a void of darkness. No, maybe not darkness. Here and there lights blinked and twinkled, blurring out of his vision in time with a thick pulsing throughout his body. Squinting and trying to focus on the line between the black and white only made his already growing headache worse and he quickly squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will his arm to move to rub at his face. After a few seconds of being unable to move he opened his eyes again, panic creeping up his spine and swirling through his veins.

Come to think of it, or what thoughts he could get out between stabbing pangs at the front of his head, he didn't really know where he was or how he got there. The last thing he remembered was a car chase. He'd been in hot pursuit of a mysterious woman who'd made off with an ancient relic after a case went extremely bad extremely fast. He followed her out of town but the roads were so icy...

Oh, the white stuff was snow then. He was on his side. It was night. The pieces were starting to come back together one by one, a puzzle with no coherent shapes. As much as he loved solving puzzles he felt he might not have time to sort every piece out right now. Being on his side in the snow at night could only be the result of a few things and he didn't think he'd simply stopped to stargaze.

If the twisted heap of tan-streaked metal a few yards away was any indication he probably lost control of his car. He didn't know how long he'd even been here but it must have been a while. He couldn't even feel the cold, rather an unsettling warmth was setting into his limbs. If he didn't do something soon he might not even see the next day.

It took a lot of concentration but he managed to roll over onto his back. His left arm, the one that hadn't been stuck in the snow beneath him, was still working to some extent. He could have sworn he'd seen his fingers moving out of the corner of his eye. Slowly fumbling with his numb limb he managed to reach into his pants pocket and retrieve his phone though he couldn't even see the screen and he doubted he could move it all the way up to his head.

Managing to press buttons he hoped he was calling PI or AD and that they would actually come looking for him. He had to have been gone for a while, they had to have noticed. If they hadn't, well... He wasn't resigned to his fate just yet. There was no way a great detective such as himself could be that easily forgotten.

Feeling the phone slip from his grip he sighed, a white trail of breath spiraling from his pale lips to the dark night sky. The stars continued to blink down at him in a display of unfathomable cosmic morse code. One by one they began to go out as Sleuth's eyes slipped closed and his mind sank down into a quiet, cold induced sleep.

Somewhere up in the dark sky a streak of light flashed, staining the night that much brighter for a brief second before the shooting star disappeared.

Monday, 23:40

Droog slid the key, pilfered from Sleuth at one point or another months ago, into the lock and turned the knob. He stopped by uninvited from time to time when he needed to remove a piece of evidence or acquire a file. It easy enough and the office had an alarmingly low amount of security for how often he came by, he really thought they'd at least change the locks from time to time. He knew he certainly would. He made a mental note to have Hearts replace the locks on their current hideout when he got back, for that matter. He certainly didn't like the thought of anyone poking around _his_ things.

The office wasn't a mess, per se, but it wasn't organized by any means. A table sat perplexingly half a foot from a wall with an unplugged lamp and some shot glasses on it, a marble bust of a large head was in one corner facing away from the rest of the room. What it had done to deserve such a time out Droog couldn't imagine, but it must have been quite severe.

Droog ran a gloved hand over the old oak desk Sleuth used as he eyed the nearby file cabinet. Second drawer down. Unlocked, likely, as the detective never thought about locking them. Or perhaps he just didn't have the key for it anymore, this thing had been here longer than Droog had been breaking and entering.

When the ringing echoed through the room, amplified by the dead silence of a winter night, Droog didn't even flinch. He slowly turned his head and curled his lip in disgust at the noise. A blue light flashed as the phone continued to ring and a few words appeared on the digital display. Though he had no intention of answering it he did want to know who could possibly be calling Problem Sleuth at this house. When he stepped closer he mouthed the words on the display to himself.

"PS Cell."

He narrowed his eyes. He couldn't immediately come up with a reason why Sleuth would be calling his own office. Even if he were trying to reach the other two detectives who had already gone home they had their own phones and there wasn't anyone else that could be expected to be here. A pocket dial perhaps, or the man just being so blatantly stupid that he couldn't figure out how his own phone worked.

Droog shook his head and waited for the ringing to stop and the machine to switch to voice mail for an explanation. What followed after the beep was an uncomfortable silence that seemed to stretch on. Droog watched the phone, a dim blue light emanating from the small screen and standing out in the dark room, as he waiting for anything. Seconds passed into minutes before he was able to pick anything up. Faintly, distantly, a noise for just an instant. A car, Droog thought. It was another ten minutes before the call dropped on its own without another sound coming through the speakers.

The mobster, against his superior judgement, played the message back with an earhole pressed to the speaker to make sure he hadn't missed anything. The sound of someone driving in the distance had been the only thing but it was something and while he had few feelings one way or another he was curious. This wouldn't be his problem but he could make it someone else's, someone who held the capacity to care infinitely more than he did.

Tuesday, 00:16

Spades Slick was a very busy man and he wouldn't let you point out the obvious by telling him otherwise. At any given moment you could expect to walk into a room and he would just be sitting there, sprawled out across a surface, fiddling with a knife or drinking and the look on his face would dare you to say something about it.

Naturally, as soon as static buzzed from his walkie talkie he picked up immediately to tell whoever was calling, "You know I got my hands full over here."

He scribbled another letter into the crossword puzzle he was working on before erasing it and pressing the pencil against his cheek in thought. An eight letter word for an imaginative distraction.

Droog's heavy sigh came in through the hiss on the radio before being followed by a more composed question, "Have you heard from Problem Sleuth recently?"

Slick shook his head and followed the action up with, "Nah. What's it to you? Need somethin' from him?"

Another scribble before he erased it again. Maybe he should do a different word, there were a few others he hadn't filled in yet. A seven letter word for enforcing capital punishment. A seven letter word for a poem with six stanzas, not that Slick knew what a stanza even was.

"I happened to be at his office when he tried to call the phone there from his cellphone."

Slick slowly inhaled, preparing to hang up, "And you wanna tell me why you're askin' me what's up when you're the one gettin' a call from him?"

Static for a few seconds and then and answer, "The answering machine picked up but he didn't leave a message. Just a lot of quiet."

"Droog. My good right hand man who would never fucking waste my time with stupid shit, my close pal of too many sweeps, my cohort in office and exile, you best get the fuck on with it. I ain't got all night to spend gabbin' with you."

"Slick, my fashionable and dedicated boss," the other carapace said almost mockingly, "For what purpose does one call their own phone to leave ten minutes of silence on the answering machine?"

Slick abandoned the newspaper on the table and slowly stood, stretching out his limbs and yawning as he reached for the coat he'd thrown haphazardly onto the back of the couch before he sat down.

"He may be near a road of some sort," Droog added after a moment.

"Great. Ain't many of those around here," Slick responded before pocketing the 10-4's and heading for the car.

Tuesday, 00:18

The world was shaking and Sleuth couldn't focus his eyes on anything. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his arm shuddering from the cold and it seemed so far away to him.

Tuesday, 00:25

Slick was already frustrated by the time he got out to the car. He slammed the door and gripped the steering wheel as he tried to work out where Sleuth could be. Droog was vague and unhelpful as usual but he wouldn't have called in if he didn't think it wasn't important.

A road. A road. He bared his teeth in annoyance and looked up and down the street. It was late and cold, not many people were out, but if anything happened to Sleuth it wouldn't be somewhere convenient and easily within sight. If Droog thought he were somewhere safe he wouldn't have called.

This was going to be a huge fucking pain, Slick could feel it in his bones already.

Tuesday, 00:50

Sleuth could move his head a little but every tiny twitch and motion sent a sharp pain through his eyes and into his neck. He thought he could get his arm, the one that was trapped beneath his body, to move a bit. It wasn't much but it was something to focus on whenever the world felt like it was rocking back and forth. He was still shivering but it had mostly died down to a dull shaking now and he could focus a little better.

Another car in the distance. How had no one seen the wreckage of his car yet? God he'd fucked up.

Tuesday, 1:14

Slick had tried alleyways for a while but nothing had come up yet. He'd radioed the rest of the crew and they were looking too but it felt so slow going. Every little thing made him clench his fists or reach for a knife.

Tuesday, 1:30

Sometimes when Sleuth closed his eyes for too long he could swear he could feel hot sunlight beating down on him and warming his limbs. As comforting as it sounded the moment he snapped his eyes open, panicked and half aware of his surroundings, all he could feel was a stabbing fear.

1:30

Sleuth wasn't home and his car wasn't where he always parked it. Slick had checked all two of the bars Sleuth had ever shown a preference for and came up as empty handed as he expected. Rage was building up inside of him with every passing minute that Sleuth remained unfound and the carapace spared not even a second thought as he shoved his knife repeatedly into the passenger seat.

1:38

God his arms were burning and it was the only thing he could focus on. Sleuth didn't know how he got here but he wanted to go home. He wanted to take a cold shower and put on the AC and man, had the sky always looked liked that?

1:40

Slick was speeding and he was lucky no one was around because he thought nothing of running other people off the road when he was in a hurry which was, incidentally, just about any time he had to drive.

1:41

Sleuth forgot about the pain in his head and had tried to move and haha man was that a mistake. He was blinded by the pain as white flooded his vision and seared itself into his skull immediately followed by a thick pounding in his head. The scream that came out of his mouth didn't sound like anyone he knew.

1:41

Slick had almost missed the torn piece of metal on the side of the road but he slammed on the brakes as soon as it registered with him. The wind was knocked out of him by the force of his seatbelt trying to keep him from sailing through the windshield but he wasted no time in getting out and looking around.

1:41

Sleuth wasn't sure if his eyes were open or closed as he stared into a vast blackness and even his own body felt so distant. It felt like floating, almost.

1:42

Slick was used to blood and messy bodies strewn across the ground. He barely even recognized the mess as the detective until he was standing over it. Dried blood, rusty and dark, covered Sleuth's upper half almost entirely and dyed his formerly white coat a grotesque red. Slick couldn't even begin to figure out where the injuries were but he could see the other man's chest rising and falling weakly as he stared vacantly upwards, eyes half lidded.

1:42

Being moved jolted Sleuth awake and fully lucid for only a moment but that was enough to send panic racing through his veins. This was it, he thought, this was definitely him dying. He held onto that fear as he slipped into the warm black void of unconsciousness.

Tuesday, 14:00

Problem Sleuth woke up and rolled over to reach for his alarm clock and check the time. It was dark, it had to be night. He wasn't sure what he even did the day before but he felt exhausted and his limbs were heavy. His back and shoulders throbbed dully as he slowly came to. His hand found something warm laying next to him and as he slowly tried to feel out what it was it moved.

Slick rolled over to face Sleuth and muttered, "'M sleepin' stoppit."

Sleuth pulled his hand back and blinked. This wasn't his bed. This wasn't his house. The seconds stretched on as he pressed a hand to his face and tried to work out how he ended up here.

He didn't…

"Slick," he said, reaching out again to shake the other man awake, "Slick I almost _died._ "

The carapace only let out a tired grunt and lazily tried to smack Sleuth's hand away before giving up on the effort. Sleuth felt a stiff, carapace arm clumsily sliding around his waist followed by the smaller man pressing himself against the detective. He sighed. He supposed he could tell Slick about it in the morning.


End file.
